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Q&A: Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany

Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports
6:01 a.m. EDT May 7, 2014

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany gestures during a news conference at Verizon Center in Washington on Tuesday. Delany announced that the 2017 Big Ten conference men's basketball tournament will be held in Washington.
(Photo:
Evan Vucci/AP
)

The train rolls out of New York City on Tuesday morning and begins barreling toward Washington, D.C., where Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany will announce he's moving his men's basketball tournament in 2017.

Dressed in a blue striped shirt and a red tie, he's done this trip before, and he'll do it plenty more in the future. Now that Rutgers and Maryland are weeks away from becoming official conference members. Now that the Big Ten is making its big push East — planning to place its men's basketball tournament somewhere on the East Coast when it can, partnering with Yankee Stadium for the Pinstripe Bowl and even opening offices in Manhattan. Now that Delany wants to live — not just visit, he likes to say — in his league's second territory.

As the New Jersey countryside blurs by, the conversation turns from what's immediately ahead — the Washington announcement — to what's ahead for college sports. Over the course of a 90-minute conversation, Delany, one of the most influential people in college athletics, discusses NCAA restructuring, the state of the College Football Playoff, football scheduling and even the Big Ten divisional imbalance.

Q: There are no plans to move the football championship game East, right?

A: I think we're going to keep it central. It's too hard. In basketball, you have 14 fan bases. With football, you have two fan bases involved in the championship game. Out of respect and common sense, you don't want to move it to a place where 100 percent of the people that are involved are going to have to come from someplace else.

Q: What might you project would be a next move for the Big Ten?

A: I think the next frontier, really, is the restructuring of the NCAA and getting our house in order. There are some things we haven't been able to do that we need to do. It's not about expansion at this juncture. It's about creating more balance for the student-athlete in his/her collegiate experience. In my view, that means getting cost of education legislation through, getting some improvements in time demands — it's pretty clear to me that the 20-hour rule has not worked. … We need to get the best medical information. We've got great trainers and doctors, great concussion protocols. There are things I'm hoping over the next 18 months that we can get done, that are legislative in nature, policy in nature.

The court cases are court cases. They will play out in due course. I suspect that the real challenges will go all the way to the Supreme Court. I don't think we'd accept a loss without an appeal. I don't think the other side would accept a loss without some sort of an appeal. I'm thinking they'll go all the way.

Q: How do you feel about where restructuring stands right now?

A: I feel good in some ways, and concerned in other areas. The area I feel good about is I think there's a general recognition that there are some areas — student-athlete welfare, in particular — where there needs to be some flexibility, some autonomy in rule-making. I think there's a general recognition that that's the case. What I don't feel particularly enthusiastic about, but we're still working on, is the definition of majoritarian/super-majoritarian bar for passage. All of these rules were put into effect by a simple majority of 350 schools.

Now people are suggesting, if you want to undo them through autonomy, you need 2/3 of all votes from the autonomous group and four of five conferences. I call those constitutional majorities. You don't do basic business with those kinds of majorities. We suggested two standards: 1) if there were simple majorities in four of the five conferences, you should be able to pass something with a simple majority of all votes. If there's a simple majority in three of the five conferences, you should need 60 percent of the votes. They were suggesting 2/3 of the votes and four of the five conferences.

The other thing is I want to make it very clear that we want student-athletes to have voices and votes in the system. This is just not about universities. It's about empowering athletes and empowering their point of view both with their voice and vote. That's been central to the vision we've crafted over the last year.

The last thing is, in implementing these rules, if we get the autonomy, if we get them passed, we want to have the authority to interpret them and to waive them and to enforce. We don't want to turn it over to NCAA staff. We all have professional people in our offices who are more than prepared, more sufficiently experienced to interpret these rules, and to waive them if necessary. We don't want to turn that over to someone else. Through interpretation, you can gut the intent of a rule. Sometimes, common sense requires that the rule not be applied. We want to be able to control that.

Q: On a conference level? School level?

A: Group of five level.

Q: Would that be a new staff?

A: No, I think what we'd do is take the (Big Ten associate commissioner) Jennifer Heppels, the (SEC chief operating officer) Greg Sankeys of the world. We have them. These are $150-$200 thousand per year employees, the best in the business. They have experiences on our campuses. I'm thinking we just bring those five together, meet on a monthly basis and interpret what's necessary. I'm not saying we can't get this, but this is not now in the draft. We have some of the autonomy in the draft. There are other things we want to get. The process as well as the administrative implementation has got to be more than what is presently in the draft for us to be comfortable. I'm not talking about me; I'm talking about our athletic directors, our faculty and our presidents. We've come this far. We need to get what we need.

We're not wanting to break off. We want to have one tournament. We want one revenue share. One Division I identity. But we've got to have the autonomy to make the rules for the 21st-century Division I athlete. We've got to have the autonomy to interpret them. And we've got to have a majoritarian bar that's high enough to ensure majority consensus for a change but not so high that you can't get something through.

Q: There are lot of areas of autonomy that have been discussed over the last few months. What are the ones you feel are imperative to change?

A: There are five or six of them. I'd say cost of education. I think a lifetime trust that allows students to come back, get their degree. I think real change in the time demands — dead periods where there's a lockdown on facilities so the kids maybe take a junior year abroad or take an internship in the summertime. After the bowl season, lock it up, give them some time off. If you really study this stuff, from the standpoint of where it was 40 years ago, 20 years ago and now, we need to back away. So there are three parts to a student's life: their athletic life, their academic life and their personal life. Just because young people start specializing in sport earlier, just because we have the facilities, doesn't mean that we can't say no to ourselves. We can do that. We have to do that.

I'd really like to see the exploration of multiyear grants. I had one. I think they're the right thing to do. The security that that involves is important. Beyond that, I think we need to make sure there's an insurance safety net. There are a lot of different ways to amend risk. There are a lot of different kinds of injuries that can occur. I'm not an insurance expert, but I think there must be a good, solid base level of insurance coverage on injuries that occur during the course of practice or competition.

There aren't many things that have been suggested by people like Kain Colter that I really, in substance, disagree with. I don't.

Those are the basic things. I just think you need some balance. I don't think you can be a student in the 21st century without access to internships or global culture, study abroad possibilities.

The other thing is I think we really, really have to assure the public and others that the students that we're bringing in are capable of earning a degree. How we do that, I'm not sure. That's threading the needle because you don't want to deny opportunity to people, but you want to make sure in providing the opportunity, you're not exploiting people. People who can't do the work that they're being asked to do, we need to assure ourselves, the public, the university community that the people who are representing the school are capable of doing the work, want to do the work and advancing toward a degree. That doesn't mean you can't take some academic risk or provide some academic assistance. I think we have really struggled with the balance of opportunity on one hand and putting people into situations they maybe aren't going to succeed. ... There's a fine line between providing opportunity and access, and exploitation. Nobody wants the latter, and everybody wants the former.

Q: You said you want everyone to remain under one umbrella (the NCAA). Is there anything you could see happening during the restructuring process that could lead to getting up from the table and leaving the NCAA?

A: We're at a place with two or three months to go until August. The kinds of things that I'm describing, our people feel very strongly about. I don't know what their reaction would be if we got an incomplete package, because we started off wanting to be inside a big tent. Big tent solution. We understand there are a lot of schools that want to be Division I. Some of them are reliant on branding in Division I, revenues from the Division I tournament. That was never our objective. Our objective was to create a system of governance we could use to serve our athletes. In the 21st century, it's painfully obvious we need to change. It's painfully obvious it's not all a level playing field, and that a lot of the level-playing-field philosophy is under attack. I would rather have us change it than have it not change or change for us.

I understand some people think pay for play is right. I do not think pay for play is right. I do not think unions are the answer. I think we have the obligation and the responsibility to articulate that as best we can. I also think these other things we can change we ought to change, and we have to have mechanisms to change. If we don't have those mechanisms, I don't know ultimately what our presidents would do. I wouldn't want to say.

Q: And you said you aren't sure what would happen if it's an 'incomplete package.'

A: Yeah, I don't know. I think there would have to be conversations internally and among or between the conferences. What we've tried to do from the beginning was to find the sweet spot between the plural Division I on the one hand and the substantive autonomy and process autonomy that allows us to change. Then, the onus would be on us to change.

I'm not overly optimistic. I think there has been some progress. To use a baseball metaphor, I think on the list of autonomous subjects, we're on third base. On the process, we're off second base with just a small lead. We've got work to do.

Q: On the subject of the College Football Playoff, how do you feel about where that stands seven months away from its first selection?

A: I'm very proud of that. There were differences of opinion, and we had real concerns about it. We were concerned about the Rose Bowl, where the games would be played, how they would be played. But ultimately, we're really happy where it ended up. The Rose Bowl is relevant. The Rose Bowl hosted the last BCS championship game and will host the first semifinal game. The games are inside the bowl system for the most part, with the exception of the championship game.

I like the committee. I like the commitment to bring in the best four teams. I like the procedures they've adopted, the weekly poll. I love the makeup of the committee. I think it's a great committee. It's got people from the media, from government, from the coaching ranks. It's a national committee. I think what they do the first two years, first year is really important ... in terms of encouraging scheduling. If they walk away from strength of schedule and don't reward people for playing people and beating people, I think that would be a real threat to what it is we're trying to accomplish.

I know there's a lot of debate about eight (conference) games, nine games. They're going to have to work through that. I'm not a person who thinks everybody's got to do everything the same way. But I am a person who believes you choose to play people. We choose to play the ACC Challenge (in basketball). We choose to play the SEC in bowl games. We choose to play. I expect that to be acknowledged.

When we set it up, we said the tiebreakers are: Who's won a conference championship? Who have you played/who have you beaten, strength of schedule? Who have you beaten head-to-head? I think everyone is agreed upon that. If we move forward on the basis that everyone is agreed upon that, then it's up to the committee to actualize that. We're not home but we're getting close. ... I would say we're around third base, on our way home with regard to everything that committee has to do other than seed and select.

Q: I know some people have come out and said — and the Playoff hasn't even begun yet — but that they believe it will expand to eight teams either during the initial 12-year contract period or after. What are your thoughts on the size of the Playoff?

A: This is the same conversation we had when we went to the BCS. We were at two. As soon as someone was left out, they wanted four. We haven't gotten to four yet, now they want to go to eight. That's always the problem. It's a slippery slope. Ultimately, it's about protecting the regular season and having a calendar that works for academics. Maybe some of the same people who say (that it should go to eight) say we're worried about the athletes. You've got to be careful. Too much ice cream isn't good for anybody. It's still college sports.

Q: So, you prefer four at least for the contract?

A: Yes, for the contract. And during my time, whichever is less. (Laughs.)